Eight months pregnant

I was 12 days overdue and booked in for an induction. We arrived and were put into a ward with four other beds/women. I was told by the midwife that I would be given one pessary, then another at lunchtime – this should make me labour ‘quietly.’ I would be transferred with the other women to the labour ward that night – M would go home – and I would go into labour the next day. At 8am I was given the first pessary and told to walk around. The midwife helped me hook up the tens machine, which turned out to be a god send. It was freezing outside but we walked over to the main hospital and back and I could feel the contractions starting. I thought they were meant to begin slowly and build up but they just kicked in quite violently. Later M went for a Burger King and I could feel the intensity of the contractions beginning to increase. I knew I had to keep walking around, but I would have done anything to sit down. Back on the induction ward I was hooked up to a monitor to check the baby’s heartbeat, she was fine and I could see my contractions on the bottom of the monitor, alongside a percentage of their strength. I had no reason to suspect anything was wrong but I had reacted really strongly to the pessary so the midwife decided to keep me hooked up. I wondered if there was a problem but was assured everything was fine. I could see the other women up and about and so concluded I had a really low pain threshold. After I had been served lunch I was given the second pessary and things began to pick up again. It was obvious that the midwife had some concern as I spent the afternoon on the monitor, when all the other women were still up and walking around or sitting down chatting, but the pain was manageable.

Proud mumma

Afterwards I was wheeled again to a recovery room where we were given toast and coffee (I’d not eaten anything since the epidural at 11am) and then Miss E was given to me and she fed for a long time. We were then moved onto the labour ward and after being shown how to dress her and change her nappy, M went home about 4am. I spent what was left of the night rocking Miss E to sleep in her cot where she was all swaddled up, she would start to whinge if I stopped, I think I even rocked her in my sleep. The next morning M came back and I had to pee into a cup and show a midwife before I could leave so I drank two bottles of lucozade and waited. That afternoon we got the okay to transfer to the New Forest Birthing Centre, after my normal midwife had secured a bed for us. Although very sore, and hobbling around like a bent over old woman, I didn’t feel tired as I was still running on adrenalin. That night I hardly slept as the woman next to me was a loud snorer but Miss E didn’t seem too bothered but woke up a lot to feed. I was having trouble latching her on and having breastfeeding experts on call was a lifeline but by the next day I felt shattered and was anxious to get home so I asked to be discharged and our bundle was brought home that afternoon.

Her first week at home

I know some women are traumatised by their birth experience, but at the time I felt like I could do it all over again. Four months on I’m less sure, if I had the choice I would take the drugs and opt for a c-section.

Reform Pilates in Blackrock, Co Dublin - whose new Postnatal Pilates App I reviewed yesterday – have jumped onboard to offer one Mind the Baby reader 5 free classes of prenatal or postnatal Pilates. What a prize!

For those who are pregnant, Pilates:

• Provides expectant mothers with a safe environment in which to strengthen their bodies to prepare for labour
• Reduces the time which it takes to regain that strength postpartum
• Helps to provide the pelvic stability required for a pain free pregnancy

For those who have just had a baby, Pilates:

• Strengthens the pelvic floor and deep abdominal muscles to restore core strength
• Strengthens and lengthens the whole body to assist with the demands of looking after a growing baby

The other great thing about attending a Reform postnatal Pilates class, is that you can bring your baby with you to class. They can have a little sleep or kick along beside you while you get in some gentle exercise. Don’t worry if they get hungry or need to be changed. The class is tailored to you and your baby so anything goes. Babies up to 12 months are welcome.

How to Enter

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED.

Terms and Conditions

The competition runs from Friday 12 April until 6pm on Friday 26 April.

You must like both Facebook pages and leave a comment below confirming your Likes to qualify for entry.

Entrants will still qualify if they have Liked either Facebook page in the past. Please still confirm that both Facebook pages have been Liked in the comments below to qualify for entry.

A winner will be chosen on Tuesday 30 April using Random.org, and will be announced here on Mind the Baby.

The winner has two weeks to contact me at mindthebaby[at]gmail.com to claim their prize. If a prize is unclaimed after two weeks, a new winner will be drawn.

The winner’s contact details will be provided to Reform Pilates so that the prize can be arranged. Competition is open to Republic of Ireland residents only.

The prize is non-transferable and cannot be redeemed for cash or any other equivalent. Classes must be booked before 1 November 2013.

The winner may choose whether they would like a prenatal Pilates course or a postnatal Pilates course. The prenatal class is suitable for all those over 12 weeks pregnant with a low risk pregnancy (if your pregnancy is categorised as high risk please provide a doctor’s note to Reform at your first class to confirm it is safe for you to attend class). The postnatal class is suitable for all mothers who are at least six weeks post partum (normal delivery) or 10 weeks post partum (C-section).

Note: Reform Pilates have provided the prize to me for the purposes of the competition. As always, my opinions are my own and I am not paid to give them.

I never went back to that class and instead tried to seek out some other way of getting a bit of “me time”, some much needed exercise and also meeting the needs of my baby. A few months later, a new Pilates studio opened up near me and I was delighted when I discovered they offered postnatal Pilates classes where you could bring your baby along and let them sleep or kick along beside you while you got in a seriously good workout.

The owner of Reform Pilates, Anna Frankland, is a mother of twins herself and understands the importance of being able to easily exercise without having the extra burden of having to factor in childcare. Also aware that not everyone has access to a class or is even ready to go along to a class, Anna has developed a postnatal Pilates App for mums to use whenever and wherever they like to help them get back in shape and also get some well deserved “me time”.

Just launched in the AppStore today, I’m delighted to be the first person to review the Reform Postnatal Pilates App. Hurray!

The App is divided into three sections. “My Body” covers questions you might have before you get started. “Workouts” brings you into the structured programmes to follow and finally, there’s an A to Z of all exercises at the end if you wanted to try them individually rather than going through a specific workout.

There are three workouts to choose from:

1. Babybelly (& Bum), a quick workout to strengthen deep tummy muscles, pelvic floor and bum (15 minutes long)

2. Adore Your Core, a quick workout to strengthen deep tummy muscles, lower back and pelvic floor (15 minutes long)

3. My PreBabyBody, a full workout to get your pre baby body back. (20 minutes long)

Each of the three workouts has a gentler “new mum” version for women who are 0-3 months post partum and a stronger version once you’re 3 months plus.

Adore Your Core Workout

I tried the Babybelly (& Bum) 15 minute workout for new mums first as a starter. When you select this workout, it displays 11 exercises in order and lets you know how many repetitions you should do. From there, you can follow the exercises in two ways – either tap on each exercise and follow the step by step images, or select the video button in the top right hand corner and you can watch short videos of each exercise as you work through them. I found the step by step images easy to follow but I’m a visual learner so watching the videos really brought the instructions to life for me, especially being able to watch the flow of the exercise. There’s also an option at the top of each workout to “play all” so you can run straight through the exercises one after the other.

Working my way through all of the exercises, I quickly realised that this is a proper workout for new mums rather than paying lip service to it. When the 15 minutes were up, it did feel like I had engaged and really connected with my ab muscles and pelvic floor. I also felt a good stretch in my bum and upper thighs. I can see how this would be a great introductory workout for a woman who has recently had a baby and is ready to start exercising and toning again. It’s not strenuous or over-exerting in any way but it’s just enough to help you on the road to getting your body confidence back. The pelvic tilts also ease you gently into getting the tone back into your pelvic floor. Anyone who has already had a baby knows that feeling of trying to engage their pelvic floor muscles in the first couple of weeks and it feels like there’s nothing happening there at all!

The instructions are easy to follow and I was able to pop my iPhone on the floor beside me and just tap the screen to move along to the next exercise. Your baby could easily be lying beside you while you completed this workout or you could grab 15 minutes while they were sleeping.

Step by step instructions for Toe Tap

I jumped to the My PreBaby Body workout at the end next just to compare. I’ve been doing Pilates for quite some time now and I’m no slouch, even if I do say so myself, so I was keen to see how challenging it would be! This is an excellent 20 minute workout for mums who are tight on time but are keen to give their body a good conditioning. This workout has 17 exercises in total and after completing the full workout, I certainly felt like I had given all of my main muscle groups a good going over. This is definitely one to work up to and a nice challenge to achieve. I think if you were doing this workout maybe 3 times a week, you’d definitely see and feel results, particularly in your core area.

There are three versions of the Reform Postnatal Pilates App. You can buy just the three new mum workouts for women who have had a baby within the last 0 – 3 months for €4.49 or just the post-3 months workouts for the same price. The full version of the App with all of the workouts costs €7.99. This is a lot for an App but given what you get for your money, I think it is well worth it. When you consider a Pilates class can cost you anywhere between €10 and €20 a week, this App allows you to have a comparable short workout in your own home, whenever it suits you and your baby and as often or as little as you like.

Health & Safety Advice

The other thing to bear in mind is the benefit to your pelvic floor of regular Pilates practice. I don’t think you can underestimate the importance of strengthening your pelvic floor after growing and carrying a baby for nine months. The preventive life long positive impact it can have on subsequent pregnancies, incontinence and your sex life is immeasurable. Just take a quick bounce on a kid’s trampoline or have a particularly strong sneeze with a weak pelvic floor and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about!

I think if this App had been around when my baby was born, it would have really met my needs of wanting to start getting my body back but not being quite ready to leave him yet. I think it also would have helped me take the pressure off myself to be back “out there” after a baby. I could have taken things at my own pace and in my own time. I’d highly recommend this to new mums. It’s definitely worth the investment.

The Reform Postnatal Pilates App is available on the AppStore and is compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

I’ll be announcing an exciting new competition tomorrow in association with Reform Pilates so please do check back here for details.

Note: Reform Pilates have supplied me with a complementary version of the App for the purposes of review. As always, my opinions are my own and I am not paid to give them.

{ FELIX }

Monday 7th September (40+6) – about 1.30pm:

I came downstairs for some lunch and said to my mum that I was having back pain but wasn’t sure if it was anything. As I was sitting describing it to her each time it happened she pointed out they were coming every 10mins. So after an hour I thought I’d go have a shower to see if they went away (in case they were Braxton Hicks of which I’d had none so far). After the shower they were still coming every 10mins. Very bearable though, just like a dull period-pain type ache in my back and legs. I figured this would either continue for a day or so or possibly disappear by the evening. I really didn’t feel convinced as everyone talks about contractions as being tightenings and the bump going ‘hard’.

Around 3.30pm I popped up to the shop to get some cake as my friend was coming over (it was her birthday).

My friend arrived about 4.30pm and I said “excuse me if I’m shifting in my chair a bit, it’s just that I’m getting some pains in my back”. We sat and ate cake and had a catch up – we hadn’t seen each other for months.

5.20pm My husband, Jack got home. I said “just so you know, i’ve been having waves of pain in my back every 10 mins since lunch… but I’m not sure it’s the real deal”. We ate more cake and had a cuppa.

5.45pm My friend left and I sat down with a couple of heat packs on my back. This was a fairly normal ritual for me as I had Pelvic Instability.

Around 7pm mum brought in some dinner and I kept having to pause during the pains so it took me ages to eat and then I just gave up. Then pretty soon had to close my eyes and breathe through the pains. Jack was timing them and saying they were now 5mins apart. He phoned the hospital and spoke to them and they said to stay home a little while longer. They said “We can’t do anything for you here that you can’t do at home”. My mum said “They can catch the baby!” .

Well, within 10-15mins they were coming every 3mins and lasting a minute. Jack phoned them back and said we were coming in. It was just before 8pm at this stage.

I had a contraction just as I was getting in the car – that was hard as it was my first not sitting down and my legs went really weak.

Mum drove very slowly the 10min drive to the hospital and I had my eyes closed the whole time. Everyone knew to be silent and not make jokes when I was having a contraction.

We got there at 8pm (my mum said she knew we got there at 8 as Australian Story had just started on the telly in the waiting room) and the midwife was telling me that she was going to monitor baby through some contractions and then they’d do an internal. She prepared me for the fact that for the first birth, the first part where the cervix thins take a long time so I would probably be going home.

Well, at 8.30pm she did the internal and said “i’m just going to get a doctor to double check – ok?”. I felt sure something was wrong at that point but remained in the zone. Doctor came in and did internal and said “you’ve done very well, you’re 5cms dilated”. I was pretty surprised and said to the first midwife “that bit you said was hard, I’ve done that, right?” She replied “Yes, you can stay” – I was very pleased that I didn’t have to go home.

Midwife told Jack to tell my parents that they ought to go home and come back in the morning.

I said that there was no point as mum wasn’t going to leave that waiting room. Jack went out and spoke to mum and dad then got our bags from the car. Needless to say, mum and dad stayed.

Shift change was around 9pm and I was introduced to my new midwife and doctor. It was very intense then. One of the midwives talked me into trying the gas (I’d been scared I would throw up as I felt nauseous from dinner), I’m glad I did try it though as it took the nausea away! Plus, it gave me something to focus on.

Around 10:30pm I thought I wanted to pee so went to the toilet (with a lot of help as the contractions were on top of one another), but I couldn’t pee, I wanted to push and didn’t want to have my baby in the toilet so I got back to the bed and they did another internal. They looked pleased – “we can see the head!”. I was so happy they said I could push as it was too hard not to –  I seemed to have no say, it was just happening.

They said “with each contraction we want you to give 3 long hard pushes”, I  had my knees together at this point so the midwife pointed out that it would be tricky to have the baby with my legs together. I think part of me was keeping them closed to take a moment to prepare myself. The next contraction came and he was born (I managed 2 pushes). They said labour was 4 hours or so… I had no concept of time but it all went very quickly without a moment to really stop and think. It was amazing and although I felt pretty tired, I felt AMAZING.

Felix was born at 10.48pm on 7th September 2009.

–> I had some lacerations, no tears, BUT they over did the stitches and I ended up having to have day surgery around 6 months later to correct it. If it doesn’t feel right, it ain’t right!

{ OWEN }  

Tuesday 27th December (40+3)

5am – awake. can’t get back to sleep…

5:35am – decide to get up and go sit in lounge room. as i sit on the recliner i feel like i wet myself. when i move more fluid escapes. my pelvic floor hasn’t failed me this pregnancy so figure it’s waters. scared to move.

5:45am – make the ‘dash’ to the loo and experience loose stools ( so glam!) and put on a surfboard-sized pad remembering something about it filling in an hour if waters have broken.

6am – nothing. no further leakage of waters and no tightening’s starting. just some random BH.

morning – nothing.

afternoon – nothing. decide to phone hospital to let them know what is happening. told to head in soon.

4pm – present to emergency for a check. they want to do some ‘spec’ thing to check for “pooling of waters”. feels like they are pinching my cervix and twisting it. nice. confirmed hind waters have leaked. booked in for induction at 6:30am next day.

5:30 – monitoring.

9pm – very painful hips lying on stupid trolley for so long whilst they wait for bub to stop moving so they can get a baseline on his HR. haven’t eaten since lunch and in lots of pain. sick of waiting so long. i cry when i’m told we just have to wait for them to get a baseline they are happy with. ask for pain killers and water. offered a drink and opportunity to move off the trolley. i beg for a fitball to sit on. cry. fitball appears. relief.

9:30pm – new staff after shift change and an angel appears to tell me the baseline is fine and i can go home and get some sleep. she adds she thinks (by the look of monitoring on my tightening’s) that I’d be back in the wee hours. not really feeling the tightening’s over immense hip pain.

10:30pm – home. get into bed. asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

Wednesday 28th December (AKA: induction day)

5:45am – ate a rather large bowl of cheerios for breakfast as well as a protein shake.

6:30am – present to birthing suite for induction. told they have no beds for us. they didn’t know we were coming.

6:35am – sit in emergency waiting room with all our bags. wait….

morning – more waiting. more monitoring (this time on a slightly softer bed – no fitball available) followed by yet more waiting in the emergency waiting room.

12pm – told they have a room for me – go for a walk and get some food whilst room is being cleaned. gentle tightening’s every 12-15mins.

12:30pm – arrive back ready for our room. whilst we were away a labouring woman had arrived and taken the room. ho hum.

more waiting. gentle tightening’s every 8mins.

2:15pm – finally get into a room in the birthing suite. nearly kiss the midwife who brings me a fitball. comfy finally. gentle tightening’s every 6-8mins.

2:45pm – 2cm dilated. rest of waters broken. MEGA tightening to follow. took me by surprise. meconium in the waters. a ‘baby doctor’ will be present at the birth.

3:15pm – drip started. monitors attached. waters leaking everywhere. feel like an old person with incontinence. glamorous.

breathe through tightening’s and chat with jack and the midwife in between.

6pm – partly due to boredom and partly because i was getting over the novelty of having some action in the uterus department, i requested the gas. really pleased with my decision, i embarked on a monologue on the topic ‘gas and how it makes me feel’. made hubby participate by trying the gas.

7pm – can’t talk. contracting.

7:55pm – pushing.

8:20pm – losing my mind. oh my god, am i still pushing? why is this so damn hard?

8:30pm – talk of forceps.

8:33pm – owen’s head arrives, facing the wrong way. cord freed from his neck and he starts crying before the rest of him comes out.

straight onto my belly (i cry out “my baby” like some weird line from a film). no need for the ‘baby doctor’ – apgar of 9 then 10. slimy skin-to-skin cuddles with a towel and blanket over us both. breastfeed straight away with great success. he looks so different to felix but he’s just wonderful!

doctor arrives to stitch me up and i make damn sure she knows that it went wrong last time and i really don’t want the same outcome again. she seems defensive telling me she looked at my notes and thought it was how i healed last time, not how the sutures were done. bullsh*t. i agree to disagree and let her at it. days after i am not in agony every time i sit down – even though this time was a 2nd degree tear – last time was just internal lacerations …haha, ‘just’. winning.

All babies look, smell, feel and act different. They are a unique little person created by The Creator and given to you through the grace of the Lord! The sooner you hold and handle YOUR baby you will become use to him, others will feel different, and you will be sensitive to his needs. Research have shown that babies typically take longer than an hour, to familiarise and look and respond to his mom, if we leave them in the close vicinity of the “breastaurant” of his mother. Mothers need their space with their babies after birth. They are overwhelmed with a lot of emotions and they need to work through it on their own time. Mothers feel easily powerless, and afraid of their babies, if not given the opportunity to start knowing him.

Birth hormone`s effect on the mother will leave, utterly responsive to her newborn baby, and the reason is to start knowing him and falling in love with them. Babies are also very awake in this period gazing to their mothers, and very aware of surroundings, as well as quiet sounds, so prepare yourself for a period of intense communication without a lot of words, even better if the father can be present, the start of a brand new family. You will always remember these very special memories.

What if my baby is in an incubator, spend as much time with him as possible, even if you can only hold his hand. Speak up and keep your healthy baby with you, let them do procedures with him on your tummy. Hold him, cuddle him and be with him. If mothers are denied of these little memories and bonding they resent it for some time.

When your baby is in a good mood, and you are at a good place, your baby will be content, yet if this privilege is denied it MAY cause, bonding  problems, post natal depression, a powerless mom who is scared of her baby and glad when he lies in the crib. Mommies please start asking, taking ownership of your new baby as soon as possible after the birth. If you are separated from baby, immediate facilitate the process as soon as you are reunited with your little one. Babies are magical creatures and they really stole your heart very easily. Oh how I love my job….no my passion, my calling and I cry out Thank You My Lord for your grace and blessing to me!

Half way across the Westgate Bridge I started to feel dull period-like pain and said to Anthony maybe something is happening.  We reached the car park at around 8.20am and decided to go to the Chemist so I could put a pad on and see if I was still leaking fluid.  By this time my teeth were chattering, it was a cool morning and I thought it may be that although there had been plenty of colder days and this hadn’t happened – I knew I was getting nervous that this might be it!  Anthony waited while I went into the chemist and bought some pads, and we both went up to work so I could recheck myself and put one on.  Once I got into the bathroom I noticed some brownish blood in the toilet, I put on the pad and went to my desk.  Anth wanted me to call the hospital but I was scared and nervous and I just wanted to make myself a coffee and have that and a glass of water.  I went to the kitchen at work got my coffee and water and went to my desk to drink them then went back to the toilet to check my pad.  There was more blood tinged discharge and I decided it was time to call the hospital.

It was about 9.30am when I called them and explained my morning and the midwife advised it was hard to know without examining me so I should be at the hospital within the hour.  I told Anthony and called a quick meeting with my boss to tell him I needed to leave, grabbed my things and headed for the car.  We arrived at the hospital just before 10.30am where I was put in a room and hooked up to a monitor for around an hour.  The baby was moving quite a lot at the beginning but then stopped and I had to drink iced water to try to get some movement, I could feel myself losing more fluid whilst I was hooked up to the monitor.  After the monitoring the midwife advised I was having regular contractions whether I could feel them or not and took me into a private room to check my pad.  I had lost my mucus plug and she did an internal where I lost more fluid and she said I was 1-2cm dilated.  She called my Obstetrician and I was admitted to hospital at 12pm and was advised he would be at the hospital at around 1.30pm.  As we were taken into the birthing suites I could hear a woman in labour screaming in one of the rooms and my teeth started to chatter again, as we sat in the waiting room to be taken to our own suite I looked at Anthony and said, “I don’t want to do this anymore”.  After about 5-10mins we were shown into one of the rooms and Anthony went home to finish packing my hospital bag, get some additional supplies and grab the baby’s hospital bag.

Whilst he was home he got a call from his parents and had to lie about being at work so we didn’t get people too excited too early.  I sat with a midwife who did some admission forms and another internal, and then I tried to relax until Anth came back. He was back with some lunch and the necessities at around 1.15pm and I ate my Tandoori Chicken sandwich and chatted and flicked through a few magazines, I was having regular contractions at this stage that were painful enough to make me stop talking to concentrate on them about 60 seconds long and 2 and a half minutes apart.  A new midwife came in to introduce herself and let us know that my obstetrician wasn’t far off and when he came in he would do another internal that would be unpleasant due to his sausage fingers.

The obstetrician came in at around 2pm and did the internal, it wasn’t so bad, and he said I was around 2cm and that we were having a baby today!!  Anth and I were still in quite a bit of shock that it was happening now, nervous but excited.  I hadn’t told anyone about my contractions and the obstetrician decided to hook me up to a sintocin drip to speed my labour along.  Once the drip was hooked up and after his internal things started to get quite painful and I was no longer able to move much as the drip was attached.  I tried to stand a few times but nothing was relieving the pain so I decided to stay put.  After about an hour on the drip the midwife did another internal and said I was about 5cm dilated and she was turning up the drip.  I started to get really hot and was in a lot of pain, then I told Anth I was going to vomit and to get the bin, I lost my lunch.  After about another half an hour the midwife asked if I wanted pain relief and I said yes so she got me the gas, it was about then I remembered my obstetrician saying before he left, “there are no extra prizes for being a hero, when you are in pain ask for help – you can have the gas, pretty much useless, pethadine, or the mother of all pain relief the epidural”. I tried the gas once, I took one breath and the room started to spin, since I was already feeling faint it made me feel worse and really out of control.  I threw it on the floor.  The midwife then said if I wanted an epidural I should say now as it may take up to an hour for them to get there, I thought about how quickly the pain had increased in the last hour and decided it was time to bring them in.  She left to get the anesthetist and returned with her within about 5mins, by now it was about 4.30pm.  I said I was feeling really faint through some of my strong contractions so they had to check my blood pressure before I was given the epidural as it can lower your blood pressure more, then the anesthetist started prepping my back for the epidural.  They were trying to put the needle in between contractions but they were coming so quickly it was very difficult.  I was in so much pain and was trying to sit still was so hard, Anth stood in front of me saying, “Please don’t move” over and over while I just scrunched up his jumper in my fists and shook my legs to try and cope with the pain while staying as still as possible.  Once the epidural needle was in she injected a needle of the anesthetic into the catheter while she taped everything down.  Once it was all done she injected another needle of anesthetic in and then started connecting the drip, it was about 5.15pm before the drip was connected and the anesthetist left.

Since the first injection I could not feel pain anymore just really intense pressure which gave me so much more clarity and I immediately didn’t feel hot and faint anymore.  The midwife did another internal and said, “Your cervix is gone, the baby is coming” and Anth asked her, what time she thought, “Like 9 o’clock or something” and she said, “Now”.  We both just looked at each other and she rushed out to get a trolley with tools on it and was just getting things organised when my obstetrician came in with another midwife.  He made a joke about a catfight between the 2 midwives and did a quick check of my cervix, he put my right foot on his hip and said, “The next time you feel like pushing you can push”.  I had one more contraction before I realised what he said and the next one I started to push, I remember him saying the baby didn’t move much the first time so get the vacuum ready.  The next time I pushed as hard as I could and I could hear them saying the head was there, I pushed again and they were saying to look down, I looked and could see the baby’s head!  One more push and they told me to stop pushing.  I had to wait while they moved the cord and it seemed like forever, all I wanted to do was push!  Then they said I could push again, 2 more big pushes and I saw a baby and heard a cry!!  Anth said, “It’s a girl!” and they laid a tiny little perfect baby on my chest, it was 5.45pm.  I cuddled her to me with tears in my eyes, she was beautiful.

The midwives took her to weigh her after we had some cuddles, she was 2.495kg, 49cm long and her head circumference was 30cm, she was wrapped and given back to us.  Anth was holding her when he said to me, “So, Lilliana?” and I agreed it was a very pretty name for a very pretty girl.  Anth called his parents at about 6.30pm and they were there by about 7.30pm, they stayed until visiting hours finished at 8pm and I went to have a shower, whilst in there the name Grace popped into my head and I came out and asked Anth what he thought, he agreed and it was done.  Our beautiful daughter had come in a big hurry but she arrived perfect, safe and stunningly beautiful, we love her with all our hearts and she continues to amaze us every day, we love you Lill xxx

On the 28/12/11 I had my midwives appointment to discuss an induction date. My blood pressure was a bit high and I had huge swelling in my feet, so my midwife Narelle said “Why not induce you today?” I was already 41 weeks pregnant . The look on my face was of sheer shock as I had it in my head that the date of delivery was to be on the 03/01/12!  I asked to think about it for 24 hours but his Father said “Why wait?  Let’s get this party started!”

So at 4pm and they inserted the inducing tape. At this stage I am only 1.5cm dilated and Narelle was hoping to break my waters in the morning.

At 8am 29/12/11 I was still only 1.5cm dilated so it was decided not to break my waters.  They didn’t send me home because I still had high blood pressure. They pushed the tape in further to help bring on labour and at 8pm that night they would insert the gel and would break my waters the next morning.

On 30/11/11 I am 4cm dilated but the midwife couldn’t break my waters, however the doctor could and at 10am the my waters were broken. At about 11:45am they gave me an epidural as I did not want a pethidine baby (pethidine is a synthetic soluble analgesic – which makes the new baby very sleepy).  My contractions were about 10 minutes apart at this stage and the midwives said it would be a great idea as I had been through enough with the inducing. I could feel pain on my left-hand side and advised the midwives of this as the anaesthetist was inserting the epidural so he would push more to the left. By the end of it I was completely numb on my left-hand side and normally numb on my right-hand side.

At about 4:45pm I was fully dilated and it was time to push. After about an hour  bub had not moved much so the doctor came back to check on me. His head was still above my pelvis and was not going to get through without either crushing my pelvis, or worse his head, so they said I needed an emergency c-section.  I burst into tears – why couldn’t they have done this earlier?  I had gone through so much and was just so disappointed in myself!

At 5:45pm I was prepped for surgery. With his father and another midwife, Maleitta to my right and my anaesthetist to my left, the surgery began.  I could feel a lot of rough tugging and pulling and by the end could feel pain on my right-hand side, so the anaesthetist then gave me some morphine to stop the pain. Thank goodness he came not long after, so no morphine ever reached my little man’s bloodstream. At 6:37pm my little man was lifted from me.

The plan was I would get to see him and have some skin-on-skin time, however nothing ever goes to plan. He did a poo on the way out, didn’t he. So he was taken away with his Dad to clear the airway, have the umbilical cord cut, and to be weighed.  I got to see my little man briefly as they took him to the scales. My first words to him were “Hello, my little toad.”  He had two little dents from pushing and the cutest chubby cheeks. He was then placed on my neck, which was quite uncomfortable and I couldn’t see  properly, but he was here and he was mine!

We were then taken to recovery and then to our own room to live for the next couple of days. That night was tough - I know I will never get addicted to morphine, as I had the itchiest nose all night!  They ended up giving me Nurofen tablets every 4 hours, with one Endone tablet at night to help me sleep. The first morning I woke with my baby in my arms! The Endone had made me fall asleep with him in my arms – I was so upset because the thought of my dropping him made me sick!

The next couple of days were rough. I was so sore. I was given the opportunity to leave early, so I took it – with day three looming, if I was going to be a mess I would prefer to do it in the comfort of my own home, rather than with a room full of women I had never met before!

Got home and yep, mental breakdown day three – but it was different!  It was a happy breakdown.  Every time I looked at him I would cry tears of joy at how beautiful he was, and how very lucky I was to have him in my life. I had the tears of ‘what if it wasn’t real and someone took him away from me?’ and the tears of ‘what if I’m not feeding him properly?’ as I was having terrible issues with attachment and the worst case of cracked nipples. The days passed and we bonded more and more and we got lots of attachment practice.

We had our first home visit (at Caboolture Hospital – where he was born) We were told he had gained 160gms since leaving hospital. He still wasn’t birth weight but he had gained. I was so happy he had gained weight. All of that worry for nothing.  I still had pain in my scar but thought it was normal so didn’t mention anything.

Second home visit (again at the Hospital) and he gained another 130gms – a week’s worth of weight in two days. My little milk piggy was doing fine but I still had this massive pain in my scar and huge lumps. I mentioned this to my midwife and she sent me for tests. I had got what they thought was staph, so was told more hospital stays for us.  More tears!  In the end, it was small fluid pockets in my scar tissue that wasn’t being released. Antibiotics for me, with more Nurofen and Panadol, (but this was instead of surgery to plant a drain!).

Third home visit was on Wednesday via phone so not too much to mention about that visit.

Soon the fluid slowly released by itself and I a felt more human everyday.  I have a very good boy and I am very lucky to have him in my life.

I must say how very much in love with my son I am. You are my pride, my joy, and my happiness

Looking back I think for me that phase lasted about an hour and a half. That blissful time where you get them on your chest and they try to feed for the first time and its just you and them and even though there are other people there they are like a haze of unnecessary information. Nothing can penetrate those first moments where its just you and your baby. I remember feeling so proud, they were the proudest moments of my life. But as soon as you have it its gone. Visitors came and my baby was in someone else’s arms. His bruised head lying against other people and his long limbs dangling over theirs. I could warn them about how to hold him, as I knew he was back to back, and I knew his head was sore, but for some reason I didn’t. It felt like I had had this baby not only for me, but for everyone I knew. Like it wasn’t enough that I wanted him, he had to be everyone’s boy. And it was at that instance that I started to lose him.

I feel now as though I am grieving. I am mourning the loss of my angel. After that first hour and a half he was still mine alone, at certain times, but it seems that these times were short, often interrupted, and won from me too frequently. As much as I hated being in the hospital at least we were alone a little longer, and visits restricted. I’d like to say next time that I’d restrict all visits from anyone for several days but I know it wouldn’t be allowed. Why can’t society leave things for just a bit? Why must everyone steal a bit of what an individual makes? So many people to try and not offend and I think I succeeded but at the same time I lost something far more precious than their approval.

I know it is wrong but I feel as though there are two Sandys. One my all go tiny man, expanding by the minute, exploring every facet of his life. He’s my best friend, and I am his mum. He’s a person and a character unhindered by other people’s existence, and its a blessing to watch him evolve. The other Sandy is gone. My tiny baby, my little floppy, wrinkled baby, lying on my chest, eyes closed, aware of nothing but my being there. For me, its like he died. Its like I watched a gradual fading away of him and I can’t unfeel it. I know he’s still here, my big crawling and smiling Sandy, playing or eating or chatting away. But there is still an almost loss. I can’t explain it any better than that. With every occasion where he was held by another, every feed he refused, every moment where he opened his eyes and saw something that wasn’t me, he slipped further from me. I don’t know at what exact point I felt him go but he did and I can’t get him back.

Perhaps his echo left when I stopped breast feeding him. I remember it clearly, irritated after a night of no sleep, lying down, feeding, willing him to drop off so I could rest too. Looking at his all knowing eye and seeing that he was as awake as was possible and the day had begun. It was all too much and I unlatched him, saying I couldn’t do it anymore, retreating through the house. Sitting in the coolness of the room by the window knowing that it was over. I would never do it again for him, never feel his snuffling and rooting and latching and contented feeding. Never hold his tiny hand and cuddle close in the dark. It was over before it should have been.

I would give anything to go back, just to feed him one more time and appreciate it and remember it and know it was the end but that it was okay. But I can’t. Our last feed wasn’t a happy one, and I think it will stay with me for a long, sad time. And so baby Sandy slipped away and the other Sandy watched on as his mother became sad and distraught at the loss, mourning her baby who was still there, nothing making sense. I feel a fraud for saying it but I can’t hide the truth. Poor women who truly lose their babies, or never meet them. It hurts me to think of how selfish I must be. So it is an almost loss, and insurmountable change. Because no longer is he mine in any capacity and as hard as it was to give up a tiny part of him after just an hour, so it is just as hard to finally say goodbye to all of that phase now. I remember my Dad’s speech at my wedding. He said ‘no-one can own a person, you have to set your children free’. He was right, and at the time I agreed and I still do; I just never thought it would happen so heart-breakingly soon.

Goodbye baby Sandy, helpless little entity. Squishy and frail and old looking. My Sandy starfish, my grumpy grandpa, my beach bum.

Contribute your own guest post about motherhood or parenting by emailing kimichips@hotmail.com.

When I did actually fall pregnant, I became a very different person.  I became much more emotional (which is not uncommon!) but I also became more in-tune with my body.  I become a softer, gentler, more intuitive woman.

It didn’t take long for my desires about the birth to change. I read a lot of birth stories and was really impressed with the gentle, loving tone of the water and home births.  In my second trimester I told my husband I wanted a completely natural birth.  He didn’t like the ‘risk’ of a home birth, so we agreed I would give birth in a hospital, but he would work with me to prepare for a natural birth.  I read every natural birth book I could find.  During my third trimester we worked with a local Doula and Hypnobirther.

The first sign that this might not happen for me was at 38 weeks.  My OB observed the baby was still sitting very high (-4/5) which he thought might be due to its size.  He sent me for extra scans, which showed my baby was already 3.8-4.0kg (supposedly – see the last paragraph for birth weight), so he made his first offer of an elective CS.  I was wary of him pressuring me into a birth that was convenient for him and I became even more determined to have the baby MY WAY!

At 39+5 I started getting a few sporadic contractions.  In the early evening I got a trickle of water that soaked through a super pad every 20 mins.  I called the hospital and they recommended I come in.  The rest of my amniotic fluid gushed out as I got out of the car at the hospital.  The midwife was concerned I was barely 1cm dilated, not effaced and the baby was not engaged (-4/5).  She was worried about cord prolapse, so recommended I lay down and rest, and said my OB would visit early the next morning.  I had sporadic contractions through the night and lost some of my mucus plug.

In the morning my OB said, “We can either do the CS now, or we can induce you and give you a shot at a vaginal birth, but I’d still give you a 60% chance of it ending in a CS”.  Of course, I chose the induction.  Almost straight away I got waves of intense contractions 2 mins apart.  I used all my hypnobirth techniques and worked through 6 hours without pain relief.  I sat on a fit ball and DH diligently massaged and encouraged me – he was really wonderful.  The midwife seemed pleased with how I was progressing and we were hopeful we might prove the OB wrong.  I was ‘in the zone’ and feeling calm.

The OB came back mid-afternoon and examined me. After 6 hours I was barely 1-2cm dilated, still not fully effaced and the baby was still not engaged (-3/4).  I was barely processing that info when he said he would attempt to stretch me out.  With absolutely no warning about what that entailed or how it might feel he manually stretched out my cervix while I was mid-contraction.  It was easily the most excruciating experience I’ve ever had.  That absolutely shattered my calm mental state – suddenly I was furious at my OB, distraught that I had achieved so little, and dismayed to think this was so likely to be complete waste of time.  I couldn’t get back into my ‘zone’ no matter how hard I tried and the contractions became much more painful (I later found out my baby had turned posterior during the stretch).  After an hour of agony I sobbed, “This is a waste of time – it’s going to end in a CS.  Just give me the epidural”.  DH gently encouraged me through another half an hour, then I demanded an epidural.  It didn’t work on my right side, so they doubled the dose.  Then my heart rate plummeted, so a group of midwives burst in and started rocking me from side to side trying to lift my heart rate.  Bub started showing signs of distress with each contraction, so they stopped the induction and my contractions ceased.  At that stage the OB walked in and I said, “OK, I give up”.

They topped up the epidural and I went straight into theatre.  Just to be sure, they topped up the epidural again before opening me up.  Bub was wedged in really tightly.  My OB had to increase the incision and get up onto the table to pull the baby out (later he said “There was absolutely no way that baby was ever coming out naturally”, but sometimes I have my doubts). My daughter’s cries were music to my ears!  As they stitched me up I could feel a stinging sensation, so they topped up my epidural again and gave me gas.  Because I’d had 5 doses of epidural, I didn’t regain the use of my legs until the next day!

In the recovery room I asked to have Josie on my chest.  In one of the most incredible experiences of my life, she lifted her head (amazing for a newborn!) opened her mouth wide, smacked it straight down on my nipple and suckled furiously!  The midwife joked, “Now all we need is for her to pass wind and she’ll have ticked all the major boxes”.  Josie immediately obliged with a fart so loud her father would have been proud to call it his own!  She had the whole room in stitches!

My recovery was exemplary.  I happily jumped out of bed the next morning to shower myself.  I felt comfortable walking around the maternity ward with Josie in my arms.  I have a barely noticeable scar and absolutely no problems with my pelvic floor.  I try to focus on these positives when thinking about the whole experience.

It certainly wasn’t the birth I was hoping for, but I got what I really wanted – a gorgeous, happy, healthy baby girl.  I still have my doubts about the way it all played out (Did I need to go to hospital so soon? Did I need to be induced? Should I have held out longer before taking the epidural?) but my OB is convinced there was no other way.

Josephine Annabel Love was born 14 Dec 2011 at 4.29pm, weighing a very average 3.5kgs, a slightly longer than average 52cm long, with a 34cm head.  We’ve been hopelessly in love ever since.

Tree of Life by Laura Zollar
http://www.laurazollar.com

The first and only time I saw my baby’s placenta was when I stood up from a kneeling position, newborn in arms, and stepped over it on the floor to get to the couch. I’ve struggled since to find the words to describe it because eloquence has failed me.

The best I can come up with is “18s“. As in “not PG“. Does that make sense?

I found it quite disturbing to look at it. It was so real, alive, vital. So grown up and serious looking. Even now, looking at pictures of them makes me catch my breathe. When my midwife asked me if I’d thought about what I’d like to do with my placenta, I honestly answered “no”. She offered to take it away, I agreed. No further discussion took place.

I think my reaction was understandable. In reality, very few women get to see their placenta at all. It’s often whisked away after delivery to be examined by the medical team and then incinerated. A placenta is not something that you see every day and even if it was, there’s no denying it’s a serious looking, blood rich, veiny, deep coloured structure and it’s easy to see where it gets the moniker “tree of life”.  Of course it has to be. Placentas are such a miracle of an organ – life giving, sustaining, nourishing. Something that does such important, serious, miraculous work will most certainly look the part.

It’s only in recent months that I’ve become aware of the breadth of options available for your post partum placenta. I’ll be honest, some of them are just not for me but others, I’d definitely consider:

1. You can eat it.

It is possible to eat your placenta either raw or cooked. You can fry it up with some onions and eat it that way or you can cut up small slivers and mix it with fruit and yoghurt for a placenta smoothie. Eating your placenta is associated with reduced instances of post natal depression, an abundant milk supply, increased energy levels and minimising post partum blood loss. There is very little evidence-based research to support these claims at the moment but if a woman feels any of the above benefits after consuming her placenta, whether it is a placebo effect or not, then it’s hard to see why you wouldn’t. Dried placenta is also used in Chinese herbal medicine to treat fertility, impotence, asthma and correcting imbalances in the body.

Incidentally, women who choose to eat their placenta in this way report that when consumed in smoothie form it’s virtually or completely indistingishable from the rest of the smoothie. When it’s cooked with onions it tastes similar to liver, which answers the question in my blog title: no, it does not taste like chicken.

Given the opportunity again, I personally wouldn’t go for this option but i can certainly see why many others would.

2.  You can encapsulate it.

Encapsulation is the process of steaming and dehydrating your placenta and then grinding it into a powder to place in capsules. These can then be taken like any other vitamin. The benefits reported are the same as eating the placenta as above. There are a number of encapsulation services around Ireland that can do this for you or you can order an encapsulation kit online if you’d prefer to do it yourself. I am squeamish at the best of times and having recently watched this process on TV, I wouldn’t ask a loved one to do this for me for the joy of it. However it’s definitely something I’d be prepared to pay someone else to do. Apparently one placenta can make approximately 100 capsules which can be consumed in the few weeks after birth or stored for use during the menopause. Now this I like the sound of!

3. You can donate your placenta to a K9 search unit

This was a totally new one on me I have to say but it makes perfect sense. Human remains detection K9 units use dogs to track and retrieve the remains of missing persons.  The natural scent of your placenta will help train a dog to obtain a wide spectrum scent source and help recover those who are lost, missing and have disappeared. A noble use for your placenta if ever there was one. More details are available here at the Laois Civil Defence K9 Unit Facebook page.

4. You can bury it and plant a tree over it.

This is a lovely symbolic gesture to mark the birth of your children I think. The only downside is if you ever have to move house, you’ll have to leave your tree behind. Remember also you have to plant your placenta several feet underground so that animals cannot dig it up.

5. You can make a piece of art with it

You can make a print of your placenta on card to be framed and displayed at a later date or some placenta service providers will also do this for you. Google is your friend here.

6. You can have it incinerated

This is the default option really. If you’ve had a baby in hospital, staff will automatically send it for incineration if you specifically request to keep it. Don’t worry about them saying no. It is yours after all so they have to give it to you, unless there’s a medical reason that they need to keep it for. It might be worth enquiring with your caregiver before the event just to have the conversation.

So there you have it – 6 options for your placenta. I’m sure there are probably others. If you don’t want to decide straight away what to do with it, you can freeze it while you make up your mind.

I would definitely consider encapsulation or donation to the K9 unit if there were a next time. I don’t have the stomach to either prepare or eat it fresh. Our garden is too small for planting trees and I’m sure Pip would also feel left out if he didn’t have one. I can appreciate the art but I don’t get it myself. And I’ve already done number 6

What would you do?

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. Ecclesiastes 3:1

 
Thought this was funny!

A few minutes later, I felt a “pop”.

OH MY GOD. I think my water just broke.

I laid there frozen, worried at what I had just felt. I was only 37 weeks, 6 days. The nursery wasn’t finished! My bag wasn’t packed! The house was still dirty! I hadn’t had time to get a pedicure yet! I was supposed to work for 2 more weeks!

I decided to sit up to check my suspicion and knew instantly by the amount of fluid that was gushing out of me. This was the real deal. I called my midwife, who suggested I stay at home until morning unless my contractions started coming on heavy. I was nervous that it was only a matter of time before we’d have to leave so I quickly showered, packed, and starting frantically organizing the house to make sure everything was in order. By 4:30 a.m., still not much was happening so I went to sleep until 7 a.m.. By 8 a.m., I was back on the phone with the midwife and we both agreed I’d stay home a little longer and wait for labor to begin but if there still wasn’t action by 1 p.m., I would come into the office to get checked. I was assured I could safely go for at least 12 hours with broken water but they still wanted to make sure Ben was okay and not under stress.

The remainder of the morning was spent getting ready, eating a huge breakfast, and freaking out. It was April fools day so I sent an email to work and a few friends only to get handful of responses about me joking. Not so! Soon, we left for our appointment, car fully packed and ready to go…realizing we might not be returning home empty handed. I was scared and felt a little sad that I hadn’t been able to snuggle and hold Sky much that morning because we were so busy getting ready. Little did I know that bedtime on Easter was my last cuddle session alone with him as my only boy.

At my appointment, it was confirmed I was leaking amniotic fluid and I found out I was 2cm dilated. Because of the heightened risk of infection, we elected to admit me and get started on a very low dose of pitocin to move things along. I was a little weary because of the many horror stories I’d heard about pitocin but in this case, the it was the  right choice to get this baby out sooner rather than later.

While we were waiting to be assigned a room, they monitored me in triage and discovered there was some cord compression happening somewhere {turns out later the cord was wrapped loosely around his neck, eeeeeek!}. Because Ben was recovering differently with every contraction, they decided to monitor me for a while before starting the Pitocin.

Around 3:30/4ish, I got the lowest dose possible and that was all it took.

By 5:30, contractions were regular, strong, and painful. Josh had left to go grab some dinner prior to things really heating up and when he returned, he found me hunched over in the rocking chair, breathing and rocking with each wave.

It was very important to me to have a natural, un-medicated birth in terms of pain management. I had an epidural with Sky and I didn’t want another one. I wanted to see what it felt like withnothing. I wanted to know how bad it would get. I wanted to be able to feel everything and see if I could really handle it.

Each contraction was stronger than the next and between Josh, the midwife, and the doula, we tried a lot of different positions and tactics. Slow dancing with Josh and rocking in the rocker with lots of pillows underneath me were the best. All the others were uncomfortable and seemed to cause more pain.

After a few hours of this, I started to wonder where I was at. The pain was getting really intense and although I wasn’t completely exhausted, I could tell that my body was weakening and I hoped so bad I only had a few more hours left. Around 9 p.m., I was 7 cm dilated. Ok, not much longer, I thought….I can do this.

Progressing from 7-10 was BY FAR the worst. The pain was so powerful I don’t remember looking at anyone or making eye contact. All I could do was grip onto the sides of the bed and moan through each contraction. By that point, I was sure that people in the next room could hear me. I was so sweaty and everything just felt like a complete blur.

A little after 10 p.m., I started feeling a lot of pressure and was sure this was the “urge to push” that everyone talks about. I don’t really remember much after that. I know people were giving me instructions and I followed along but it was really one of those things where you kind of go inside your body and everything around you becomes muffled sounds and movement.

I could feel that my midwife wasn’t in the room and she had been missing for some time. Turns out, the one other patient she was tending to went into labor at the same time! A few other doctors came into the room, introduced themselves, and said they were going to take over in the event my midwife couldn’t make it in time. It was a little bit of a let down but about 10 minutes later, she came running in just in the nick of time!!!!

All of a sudden, I was ready to push and felt a huge wave of relief knowing that everything was almost over! I pushed for a total of 14 minutes and while it was definitely painful, it actually felt more natural and relaxing to be focusing on pushing than it did trying to muster my way through the hard contractions. They were directing me on where to push and I could easily follow along because I could FEEL IT.

At 10:27 pm, baby Benjamin joined us. Perfectly pink and tiny at 6 pounds, 8 ounces. It felt so surreal. They kept him attached to the cord for a few minutes and that was a crazy sensation – he was out of me, but everything else was still inside. It’s just so amazing what our bodies can do!

Overall, this birth experience was SO MUCH BETTER in every aspect. Other than coming earlier than expected, it was exactly what I had hoped for and I’m proud of myself that I made it through. In a way, I feel like it was healing for me to have this type of birth…to know that it can be better than what I had with Sky and that it is possible to manage without drugs or too much intervention.

He’s just delicious. I think we’ll keep him!

It has been a LONG time coming (in more ways than one). To be exact, it has been 8 (I can’t believe it has been 8) weeks since Silas Edward Martin was born at 8:42pm on February 2, 2013. He weighed 7 pounds, 9 ounces and was 20 1/2″ long. Also, to be exact, it has been 15 years, 3 months since I knew there had to be a better way than a c-section.

Let’s start at what I thought was the beginning of this birth. My water broke on Monday Jan. 28th (My due date was Jan 22nd and I am ALWAYS 2 weeks “late” with all my children). It was in the morning and I thought I felt a trickle, but I wasn’t sure that was it. Then around lunch time we all went to the grocery store to get a few things and I get out of the car and water just gushed.  I was certain now that my water broke. Micah looked at me and kissed me and said he was so excited to be on this journey with me. We went home and started cleaning… yes I know, and I called my parents to ask them to come get the kids (minus Noah). They live in Murrells Inlet (about 2.5 hours away) and they said they were on their way.

I figured that my labor would be starting soon because that is what happened before. 24 hours went by and no labor. My midwife said not to worry, just stay hydrated. 48 hours went by and still no labor. What I didn’t know is that your body replenishes amniotic fluid every 3 hours so my water kept “breaking” all the time. All in all, it was 6 days of my water breaking before little Silas made his arrival. We have been praying about home birth since we found out we were pregnant with Isaac. It was in His timing that this home birth came. He made sure we were faithful and every trial (including waiting 6 days with my water broken) was about me (and Micah) being faithful. Not everyone was as confident as we were (and believe me, there were moments when my confidence wavered). We definitely has some people freaked out. We only told a couple of people to pray because people tend to become fearful when things don’t go as “expected”, rather than just have faith that God is in control of everything. I will say that this portion of my “pre-labor” was pretty awesome. Micah stayed home with me and waited on me hand and foot. He made me fancy breakfasts, lunches and dinners. He rubbed my feet. We watched movies. We went for walks around our property. He ran me luxurious baths. He was a totally awesome, loving husband!

By Saturday, Feb. 2nd, I was ready to have this baby and I wasn’t sure when he (or she, we didn’t know) was going to come. I had been having a LOT of pelvic pressure pain. It felt like contractions, but they were on my pubic bone and were just killing me and they weren’t productive.  We called our midwife and she said we should come see her and get out of the house. So a car trip it was. It was a beautiful (and warm) day and I was glad to be out of the house. Noah (my 15 yr. old) came with us to visit with her kids. We got there and talked about options and let me tell you what a God send my midwife (and friend) is … She is so calm and really wants to know what I feel and what I think and she prays. So thankful to have her in my life. Anyway, she checked on baby and baby sounded great! She decided to have me lay down and she put a TON of pressure on the baby’s head and tried pushing him back behind my pubic bone. She worked on me for a while then I just laid there for a while. I was having some contractions, but they still felt like they did before so I didn’t think anything about it.  She told me to lay down on the drive home.

So, when we left, I was in the middle seat of our van laying down while my son and Micah were in the front. I was having contractions and Micah kept asking me if they were different. I kept saying I didn’t think so, but I wasn’t sure. These were pretty intense contractions, but I still didn’t think that “this was it.” I knew something was different when I was getting totally annoyed that Micah was on the phone with Esther (his niece and my best friend) and wasn’t helping me (he was driving, how could he help me?) . We were little over an hour from home and I screamed for him to pull the car over… NOW! Of course we weren’t near any exits and he said he would as soon as he could. He finally pulled over behind a church and I got out of the car immediately. I walked around trying to see if this was “really it.” Meanwhile, Micah called our midwife and said, “this is it, you need to come.” Micah coaxed me back into the van, but we had to stop at the gas station because I thought I was going to pee my pants (sorry if TMI). I realized as we walked into the gas station that I probably looked like a hot mess. I was walking to the bathroom when I fully realized I was in labor. I stood behind a stack of soda and had a contraction. We got back into the car and I realized I needed Micah to be in the back of the car with me. It is a REALLY good thing that I took Noah to get his permit a few months ago. I would say that he is a pretty good driver and although he had never driven on the highway before that night. Micah just told him to please be careful and we were on our way. The contractions were coming hard and fast but I still felt like they were on my bone. I was leaning over the middle seat and Micah was putting counter pressure on my lower back which helped immensely. Sometimes his hand would slip during a contraction and I would scream out to please put it back. During one contraction I felt zero pain at all, in fact, I sort of sat up and said to Micah, “that feels good, something has changed.”

We make it home and pull into our (very long) driveway and I get out of the car. I have a couple of contractions (at this point they are about 2 min apart). Micah is desperately trying to get me in the house. He said something like him not wanting me to have the baby outside or something to that effect. He helps me up the stairs and into our home and tells me to go straight to the bedroom. Noah asks what he should do and Micah says. “boil some water.” I laughed! I know he has called our midwife a couple of times and I am sensing that she isn’t going to make it on time. We get into the room and I take off my clothes and Micah checks me and is silent. I scream, “what, what is it?” He says that he doesn’t know how dilated I am because he feels the baby’s head. All during my labor in the car I was moaning loudly during contractions and now I felt something different. I had always heard that your body will do the work and push the baby out when he is ready. Well, all of the sudden, I felt my body pushing the baby out. I heard something that sounded like a monkey and realized it was me pushing in short little spurts. For a split second I felt embarrassed that I couldn’t stop myself, but that quickly gave way to the task at hand. Our midwife was on speaker  and she said she was still a ways out. I begged Micah to help me stop (having labor I guess?) and I also think I said I decided I didn’t want to have the baby today. Like that was gonna happen! I became very internal, then  I screamed out as he was born. I couldn’t believe it was just me and Micah. Micah helped me labor and deliver our little boy. Of course I am asking if he is ok (because I am bent over) because I don’t hear anything. Micah was rubbing is back and sorta patted his butt and then he cried out. I was now crying. Our midwife made it about an hour or so later and helped clean up and check us out. She was so happy for us but sad that she wasn’t here. Although she did think that it was perfect for us. She said that Micah isn’t like most husbands being so involved in all the knowledge of birthing babies. Ya, I’m glad he is with me.

We did it. We had a home birth. We were faithful. God was so good. God’s timing was exactly perfect. We feel so beyond blessed.

Our family is now blessed with six children. He is thriving and we are starting to get into a new groove at the Martin house. I wouldn’t change it for all the money in the world.

Miss E: one hour old

The moment I gave birth it was as if I too was born again. I was given an enormous amount of responsibility with very little training (an NCT course and a few baby books) and my home life became firmly entrenched in the traditional values that as a feminist I had poured scorn on in the past. My role as a wife rapidly changed focus to one of mother and homemaker. It made me question how I had spent my twenties, but there was very little time to think as every waking moment was taken up with mothering and I would collapse into bed for a few short hours before the next feed. Immediately after I had recovered from my c-section I started going out for walks with my daughter, to try to clear my mind and to introduce her to the world around me. A world that I wished was perfect, a world which I know only too well can throw your best intentions back into your face.

First try with the Mei Tai sling.

The decision to try to be a stay at home mum was both easy and difficult in equal measure. Easy because in theory of course I want to spend every waking moment with this beautiful creature, sharing the pleasure she gets from exploring the world around her. Difficult because modern life has made being a SAHM a rarity. I want to make sure that I am her main influence (alongside her Daddy), I want to protect her, to let her know that I will always be there for her. But will I crave adult company too much? Will I find the daily battle of trying to entertain a baby unbearable? Will I cope on a fraction of the money I was earning a year ago? These are all questions I am going to find the answers to in the next 12 months. So I have decided on creating this space as somewhere to record my thoughts as we go out on adventures together, to pool my homeschooling online resources, and to document the things I make for her as I use crafting to re-carve my identity (as the previous incarnation of myself lies somewhere else in tatters).

The best view I can see

One of my main reasons for starting this blog is that I am a pretty pro-active person, but from time to time my interest wanes – although I am excellent at starting projects, I tend to drift off halfway through (normally to start something else new). Obviously this is not an option when it comes to DD and I don’t think it will hurt to have somewhere to wrangle and focus all the witterings that bubble away in my mind; giving me insomnia and making me unable to concentrate and multi-task. I want her to have a wonderful childhood, okay, I’m not sure if such a thing is possible 100% of the time – but I want to be consistently and constantly asking myself am I doing my very best here? What else can I do to give her a joyful sensory experience? Am I succeeding in making everyday magical?

There is so much wrong with this.  Firstly, I object to SBS calling my stomach “embarrassing”!  Yes I have a weird looking tummy at the moment but it’s only four months since my last baby was born and I’ve been successfully ignoring it completely!

Secondly, I hate operations and the idea of having my stomach muscles stitched together freaks me out.  Worse still, on the program they apparently said that if they’re not going to join up again, there’s nothing you can do.  Apparently I can’t even take action to prevent this dire prognosis.  No amount of pilates and tummy-pulling-in is going to help me.  It’s either going to fix itself on its own, or it’s not.

Thirdly, I was really better off not knowing that my guts are apparently exposed through this dreadful gap.  I can’t feel them, I can’t see them, I’d rather not know.

Mum, if you read this, it’s ok, you are one of the most supportive mums I know and I forgive you for telling me about it!

Since the United States does not really have any money of its own and is in debt to the eyeballs to the Federal Reserve, this is a critical factor. The Federal Reserve is a privately owned bank that lends money to the government, and it’s clear that Uncle Sam is in the same boat many of its citizens are in – financially bankrupt for all intents and purposes. Thus, every citizen is encouraged to get caught up in the romantic illusions served up by media – which uses sex to sell everything from soup to cars to medications – with the goal of keeping the birthrate steady in order to provide more tax-paying citizens. The media has other goals such as distraction from what the politicians are doing, or keeping us too tangled up in one another’s dramas to pay attention to what is happening in Washington DC, but a steady population is a must for any country of means.

Every national government thinks they own the people who live in their territory, and the more people there are, the more workers there will be to pay taxes and make goods and luxuries for those at the top. Therefore, marriage is a way of producing more subjects to work for the 1%. Given the above, what makes us think the Supreme Court is a good place to decide on the question of same-sex marriage, which is not likely to produce more children who can be counted on to be good producers and tax-paying citizens? How can an arm of the government make a decision that will cost that government big money?

Sometimes the people on both sides of an argument remind me of little kids fighting with one another who then run home to Papa to ‘tell’ on one another, blaming one another for all sorts of unfairness, hopefully influencing Papa to intervene in their favor and settle the argument. This is one of those times. We are here to learn and grow in wisdom and consciousness. How can we do this if we keep handing all the decisions to someone else? Those who claim that marriage must be between a male and a female should live that way. Those who have other ideas should live according to their own ideas. This issue is not nearly so much about male and female as it is about money, power, national governments, and lessons around fairness and being judgmental in negative ways. Are we passing the course or are we flunking?

Birthing the placenta was something I really hadn’t given much thought to before the birth of my baby, and even during my pregnancy I really didn’t think about it that much. I had always just assumed that it was fairly easy  and that it would pretty much just fall out – ok, bit of an understatement but with no hard surfaces I thought it was going to be ‘easy street’ after pushing a baby out and that it was going to feel like a wet jelly fish.

After the birth I was tired, sore, swollen and had completely lost touch with my nether region! My baby came out with a superman pose so his little hand was up by his head which left me with a couple of second degree tears. After all of that, I just wanted to lay down and rest and I wasn’t prepared to ‘work’ for it – my midwife had said “Max, you need to give me a push, just like when you were pushing for the baby’ – was she kidding? I was done. Finished.. and I was completely distracted by the beautiful little boy I was now holding in my arms.

I was totally exhausted, I had nothing left in the tank, I was shaking and tired but my midwife was on high alert to ensure that the placenta came away clean and whole without any complications or residue left inside the body. So.. unfortunately for me, there was no rest and I had to squat down again and push through my sore and aching body, push through the mental barriers I was putting up and deliver this incredible organ.  I didn’t expect to have to push so hard but I admit, with a couple of big pushes, it did just kind of fall out.

Once the placenta was below me, I was looking at my baby and his umbilical cord, which was attached to his placenta – suddenly I realized I was no longer part of this incredible loop and once the cord was cut, my baby would be on his own. We had talked a lot about our birth plan prior to the birth and I wanted to delay cutting the cord until it had stopped pulsing and here’s why:

It gives babies the oxygen they need immediately at birth and the iron they need for growth. They also get the red, white and stem cells they need for optimal health. Another thing I found out was that when the baby is born, in that moment, only 2/3rds of the baby’s blood is actually in the baby – the remaining 1/3^rd is still in the umbilical cord and the placenta, so waiting until it stops pulsing ensures that the cord can actively pump the iron-rich, oxygen-rich, stem-cell-rich blood into the baby. [The WHO no longer recommend immediate cord clamping.]

There seemed to be a lot of talk about ‘cord blood banking’ leading up to the birth of my baby and I did look into this too. Cord blood banking is the collection and preservation of cord blood stem cells.  They can be stored indefinitely (if stored correctly below -150C) and then used in transplant medicine to treat many life-threatening diseases, such as leukemia and other cancers.

Basically, it can be seen as an insurance policy for your child ‘just in case’ something comes up in the future and provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at the moment of birth to collect and save the stem cells from your baby’s umbilical cord blood for future use. In order to do this, the umbilical cord needs to be cut very quickly before it stops transferring everything into your baby.

We chose not to bank our baby’s cord blood as we wanted our baby to have all the blood, oxygen and nutrients in his body NOW as we felt this would give him a stronger start in life. It’s a very personal decision and each family needs to decide what is best for them.

Anyway, back to the placenta!  I was amazed at the intricacy of the placenta, it’s truly an incredible organ and far bigger than I thought it was going to be.  It had a complex web of arteries and veins and appeared to be in a state of organized chaos. It was bright red and rich looking, healthy and strong.

My healthy placenta  

So… after your baby is born, what do you do with it?

There is still so much debate about what to do with it; some throw it out, some plant it under a special tree in the garden and others eat it!  Despite attracting some controversy, there are some great reasons why eating it is likely the way to go!

Placentophagy is the act of mammals eating the placenta of their young after childbirth and with good reason – the placenta contains high levels of prostaglandin, which stimulates the retraction (return to the former size) of the uterus. It also contains small amounts of oxytocin, which eases birth stress and causes the muscles around the mammary cells to contract and eject milk.

So – given that we too are mammals – would you eat your placenta?

Although somewhat unproven, it is generally accepted that eating your placenta will also reduce the risk of post-natal depression due to its high levels of vitamins and minerals, particularly B6, which can help to fight depression.

I googled ‘eating your placenta’ before I had my baby and was inundated with strange recipes that did everything but excite me about eating it. You can fry it, slow cook it or eat it raw like a steak. I have to say that none of these options were particularly appealing.

Given that I had a home birth it was easy to ensure that no one was going to come in and throw mine away by accident so I did have to make those decisions before the birth about what I wanted to do and given that I have followed the natural and what I consider a fairly primal path the whole way through, I was keen to give eating it a go.

My midwife was excellent and cut a portion of my placenta up into 60 tiny tablet size pieces that were glad-wrapped up and put in my freezer so that I could eat 2 each day for 30 days after the birth of my baby.

When it’s a tiny piece of frozen meat the size of a panadol tablet, it’s easy to stomach and gulp down with a sip of water. When it’s that easy, why would you want to miss out on all of those nutrients?

My midwife has said that on the days where I feel tired or emotional or challenged in any way, have another piece of placenta – there is no risk of overdosing on placenta!

So…. 3 weeks later and I am feeling pretty good. I admit that I don”t think eating your placenta can help you with the sleep deprivation but I think it does help in balancing hormones and combatting depression. I don’t know how I would have felt if I didn’t take it but I certainly didn’t feel any negative effects. So.. all in all, I would recommend doing as nature had intended.  Go for it!!!

But it happened last week with a friend from my pregnancy group. She was overdue and I was just thinking about her lots so I sent a message and turns out her labour had started a couple hours earlier! Big surprise for her – the sonographer had told them they were having a girl so they brought everything for a girl and it turned out to be a boy! Not sure what we’d do if ours was a girl, the whole nursery is blue and most of the clothes are all blue and covered in cars or planes! But I heard it’s easier to make mistakes with girls as the doodle could just be in hiding whereas we have a very clear picture of our son’s bits!

We had another successful visit with a midwife at the hospital. We are soooo glad we changed from the mean midwife at Moorebank. The two different midwives we’ve seen at the hospital have been absolutely lovely and the whole experience really enjoyable.

Being so close to the due date I get asked a lot about what I’m planning on doing for pain relief during labour.  I really can’t tell people what I plan on doing, only what I wish to do, assuming things are manageable and there are no complications.

Some of my friends before they gave birth talked about the birth with fear and claimed that they would opt for an epidural the moment they got to the hospital. Ina May Gaskin writes in her book ‘The Guide to Childbirth’ about how fear has negative effects on our body during labour. When we’re fearful we tense up which makes the sensations of the contractions more painful, and our body goes into the ‘flight or fight’ response, directing blood away from the uterus.

I’ve read so many empowering, beautiful birth stories that I have no fear about the birth. I know it is going to be painful.  But I don’t want to numb the experience or get off my head to avoid the pain.  I’m going in with an open mind, if I have been laboring for hours and can’t take it anymore and need an epidural for my own health or for the health of the baby I will have it.  But I’m not going to go into the hospital with the mindset that I can’t do it and need drugs right from the start. I’m definitely going to give it a go and I cannot wait for the challenge.  I love long runs and pushing myself to keep going so I think I’m quite a strong person mentally so I’m looking forward to seeing how I manage on the day.  Mr Pom has complete faith in me that I can do it without drugs which is really encouraging!

We’ve heard a lot of good things about water births and, after watching a truly amazing birth on ‘One Born a Minute’ where a first time mum gave birth in a pool without a sound and delivered the baby herself, thought it might be a good way to go.  Luckily Liverpool hospital have just started allowing water births so we are going to a class tomorrow to learn all about it. We are both very intrigued!

I’ll just end by telling you about my dramas last night.  I had Maths class at uni after work and had to take my laptop bag so tried to travel light by taking everything out of my handbag into the laptop bag.  It must be from pregnancy brain that I forgot to pack my house keys and I only realized once I was at class.  Unfortunately Mr Pom was already at work by then so there was no way I could get back in the house and he was not due home until 11pm (I’m normally in bed by 9.30pm)! Luckily we have some friends who live in the same suburb and they picked me up from the station and I stayed at theirs until Mr Pom got home. But it was a very exhausting day – a whole day at work (with doing maths revision on lunch), 3 hours of maths class and a late night. It was a very muggy day so I was sweaty and gross and had walked an hour in total throughout the day with my heavy laptop bag. The ironic thing was if I had brought my purse and not just enough for the bus I could have gotten the train to Olympic Park to meet Mr Pom and pick up the keys, but I only had $2 on me and he wasn’t allowed to leave the bus he was driving. So I had a little cry, mainly from exhaustion and the need to go to bed but knowing I had several hours to wait up yet, and ate my manky sandwich for dinner on the train home. My friends supplied me with chocolate which cheered me up and our cats were very pleased to see us when we finally returned home after 11pm to feed them!

36 Week Bump